The wonderful toys illustrated
above designed
by Maqbool Fida Husain (1915-2011) are two highlights from The Abe and
Jan Weisblat
Collection at Sotheby's New York Asia Week this Fall. The painting
in the center from the same collection is also by Husain, (Lot
8), entitled "Mother and Child," a sumptuous
oil on canvas painted in 1960 with an estimate of $120,000 to
$180,000. The winsome toys are (right), Lot 3, "Tonga,"
painted in tempera on wood, with an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000,
and (left), Lot 9, "Bullock Cart," with an estimate
of $10,000 to $15,000. Both subjects - the tonga and the bullock
cart - are images etched on the Indian landscape - timeless. The
Weisblatt's fell in love with India - and Indian art - the moment
they arrived in the country when Abe was awarded a Ford Foundation
Fellowship. When Abe Weisblatt returned to the United States.
Sotheby's catalogue for this sale notes "Abe's insightful
reports from Bombay led the Ford Foundation to hire him to administer
its fellowship program upon his return from Bombay. In 1958 he
moved on to the Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs, a small
organization funded by John D. Rockefeller III," whose main
goal was to promote agricultural development in Asia. By all accounts
a fascinating and gregarious couple, "they fell in love with
the country - its people, its rhythms, its complexity, its color,
and its food. (Jan never met a samosa she didn't like.) Abe threw
himself into analyzing the potential for non-agricultural employment
in rutal India, and Jan learned that cooking on a single charcoal
brazier was no small task for a girl from Maplewood, New Jersey."
(Sotheby's catalogue for this sale).

Lot 8 sold for $134,500 including the buyer's premium as do all results mentioned in this article.

Lot 3 sold for
$35,000 and Lot 9 sold for $35,000, extremely strong prices for the
toys.

Lot
47, "Untitled
(Dancers Under the Full Moon)," by Husain, oil on canvas, 39
1/2 by 19 1/2 inches, from The Collection
of the Late June and John Lewis

Beautiful Lot 47, "Untitled
(Dancers Under
the Full Moon)," by Husain, is from The Collection of
The Late June and John Lewis, and has an estimate of $90,000 to
$150,000 (it sold for $290,500). Sotheby's
catalogue for
this sale notes that they "moved to Delhi in 1959 under the
auspices of the Brookings Institution" and that "Mr.
Lewis was a development economist renowned for his civic contributions,
mostly notably as a member of the Council of Economic Advisors
under Presidents Truman, Kennedy; minister-director of the United
States Agency for International Development in during President
Lyndon B. Johnson's term and chairman of the development assistance
committe of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
under President Jimmy Carter." Mr. Lewis authored several
books on economic history, and the Lewises became friends with
the legendary collectors Thomas and Martha Keehn, and Lakshmi
Jain, co-founder of the Indian Cooperative Union, who were instrumental
in the development of Indian Art globally at that time. During
their second stay in India, they began collecting Indian art.

Dramatic
and embracing the
colors of Indian miniatures, "Noel,"by Styed Haider Raza (b. 1922)
is described as "lyrical abstraction" by the artist.
As the title implies, this painting - executed in 1959 - celebrates
his time in France, after he won the prestigious Prix de la
Critique in 1956. Raza was the first foreign born artist to
receive this award, which enabled him to travel throughout the
French countryside, replete with churches and chapels made famous
by so many other great artists, a time he cherished:

"Throughout
the late 1950s
and early 1960s, he turned for inspiration to Provence and the
Maritime Alps, creating an explosive, expressionist body of work
of which the present is a fine example. As French art critic Rene
Barotte once wrote: "From an Indian miniature, (Raza) draws
out a French landscape!" (von Leyden, Metamorphosis,
Bombay, 1979).

Lot 37 has
an estimate of $80,000
to $120,000. It sold for $194,500.

Another Raza, Lot 59,
"Village A L'Hombre," an oil on canvas that measures 25 3/4 by 18 1/8
inches and was painted in 1963, has an estimate
of $40,000 to S60,000. It sold for $76,900.

Benares is one of the most famous
ancient cities
in the world, and the subject of Lot 13, "Untitled (Benares),"
byRam Kumar, illustrated
above. The use of green is both unusual - it is not a color one
would associate with Benares - and compelling. Its geometry reflects
the labyrinthine drama of The Holy City's narrow lanes, burning
ghats and the famous River Ganga that features so prominently
in Hindu religion and ancient mythology:

"Wandering along the ghats in a
vast sea
of humanity I saw faces like masks bearing marks of suffering
and pain, similar to the blocks, doors and windown jutting outof
dilapidated old houses, palaces, temples, the labyrinths of the
lanes and by-lanes of the old city, hundreds of boats - I almost
saw a new world, very strange, yet very familiar, very much my
own." (Sotheby's catalogue for this sale)

One of the
most unusual paintings
on offer this season is Lot 56, "The Unruffled Calm,"
by Jehangir Sabvala (1922-2011), illustrated above, that was exhibited
at Kunika Chemould Art Centre, Delhi in 1972, and Gallery Chemould,
Hehangir art Gallery in Bombay in 1973. Its
luminosity must be experienced in person. The artist explains:

"No longer am I satisfied with
the juxtaposition
of planes, the search for rate color, the almost total denigration
of the unpremidated. it is the intangible which is now my goal,
Space and light, and an element of mystery begin to permeate my
canvases. Emothions seek a new release in what I hope will become
a permanent synthesis of heart and mind." (Hoskote, 'The
Crucible of Painting: The Art of Hehangir Sabvala, Bombay, 2005)

The superb monochromatic work by
Vasudeo S. Gaitonde,
illustrated above, transposes the artist's sublime brushwork to
the medium of oil wash on paper, a technique that is quite awesome.
Meditative, and influenced by Zen Buddhist philosophy, Gaitonde
was the most reclusive member of the Progressive Artist's Group.
The artist's exposure to the work of Abstract Expressionists on
his visit to New York in 1964 is especially evident in this powerful,
luminious work of art, achieved through the use of a roller. Lot
35, "Untitled (Black)" has an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. It
sold for $98,500, a strong price for a work on paper.
It is also from The Abe and Jan Weisblatt Collection.

Continuing in the monochromatic
pallette are
Lot 78, "Woman at The Window," by Krishen Khanna
(b. 1925),
and Lot 31, "Three Drawings," by Akbar Padamsee (b.
1928),
both illustrated above. Lot 31 is a trio of atmospheric drawings
in charcoal on canvas each signed by the artist in 1965. It has
an estimate of $8,000 to $12,000. It sold for $23,000, a
strong
price for a drawing by the artist.

Lot 78 has an estimate of $20,000
to $30,000.
It sold for $25,000.

Lot
94, "Jihad Pop,"
by Seher Shah

Illustrated above is Lot 94,
"Jihad
Pop," by Seher Shah, twelve framed prints on paper. Sotheby's
catalogue for this sale notes that the artist is captivated by
the fleeting nature of public and private expanses. Figures with
indecipherable countenances move in clusters throughout these
prints, mamifesting a sense of detachment and anonymity. They
occupy ephemeral spaces ranging from vast piazzas to abstract
geometries. She manipulates spatial perspectives within the
compositions:
the picture plane is tense and dynamic as Shah uproots the viewers
from the anticipated homogeniety of perspective suggesting a parallet
universe."

Lot 94 has an estimate of $20,000
to $30,000.
It sold for $25,000.

Not illustrated is a wonderful
installation
of color etchings on paper by Shazia Sikander, Lot 93, "Nine
Works," with an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000. It sold
for $18,750.

Lot
29, "Untitled
(Blue Abstract)" by Ram Kumar

Enveloped
in a moonlit blue
glow, Lot 29, "Untitled (Blue Abstract)", by Ram Kumar (b. 1924),
was painted in the 1960s and exhibited at "Ram Kumar: A Retrospective,"
at the Aicon Gallery, London, from March 31to April 30, 2010:

"The
background in works
from Ram Kumar's post-figurative abstract period, starting in
the 1960s, begins to take on as much significance as his now infamous
early works of the 'teeming masses' from the 1950s. The dramatic
shift in Ram Kumar's palette and preferred style during this period
has a strong correlation to the natural world - conceptualized
through something as basic as the negative spaces between buildings,
transitioning from the painterly concerns of close, urban life
to the spaciousness of the earth and sky."

Lot 29, an
oil on canvas that measures 25 1/2 by 36 1/4 inches, has an estimate of
$100,000
to $150,000. It sold for $74,500.

Prianka
Matthew, Sotheby's
Vice President, Head of Sale, Modern and Contemporary South Asian
Art with (left), Lot 1, "Untitled (Woman at Work),"
by Husain, from The Abe and Jan Weisblat Collection,
previously
in The Thomas and Martha Keehn Collection.

The
painting illustrated to
the left of Prianka Matthew (above) is Lot 1, "Untitled (Woman
at Work)," by Husain, from The Abe and Jan Weisblat Collection,
formerly in the colleciton of Thomas and Martha Keehn. The Weisblat's
visited art galleries with the Keehns, and viewing grew into
collecting,
and this work was acquired in the early 60s. It is a depiction
of a timeless, traditional village scene, and of women, a favourite
subject of the artist, whose mother died when he was very young.

After
the sale, Mrs. Mathew, the head of sale for Christie's, said "we are
pleased with the results of today's sale which totaled $2.6 million and
saw works from private collections perform particularly well."
"Overall 33 percent of sol dlots achieved prices in excess of
their high estimates," she said. Of the 93 offered lots, 54 sold, or
58.1 percent.

It is
natural that a wordly
couple like the Weisblat's should have an affinity for a work
of art as spectacular, playful and winsome as Lot 3, "Tonga"
illustrated above, made by the artist when his first son was
born, and he needed a regular job. He abandoned painting cinema
billboards - that still impact on the rural and urban Indian landscape
today - and went to work at the Fantasy Furniture Shop as a furniture
and toy designer, where his toys certainly did not fetch the hefty
pricetags this beautiful piece achieved at auction ($35,000).
When his daughter was born, Husain began designing wooden toys,
which began to appear in his paintings. Sotheby's catalogue for
this sale sheds light on the deeper implications of Husain's playful
toys however:

"'Husain's toys should
not be called
toys,' wrote R. Chatterjee in a book upon the subject, 'they are
not playthings for the amusement of children. They are neither
ephemeral nor piquant in appeal. Their formal beauty and decorative
charm are enduring, which gives these toys almost monumental quality.'" (Berlia, Continuum: Progressive Artists' Group,
Delhi,
2011, p.71).

Husain's "toys" were a welcome
surprise
this auction season. Those who won them at auction are very fortunate.

One
of the loveliest works in the auction is Lot 51, "Untitled (Landscape
Drenchedin Moonlight)," by B. Prabha (193-2001). An oil on
canvas, it measures 25 1/4 by 36 1/4 inches. It has a modest
estimate of $15,000 to $25,000.It sold for $30,000.

Lot 16, "Untitled," by Somnath Hore, oil on canvas 20 by 15 inches

The
most beautiful painting in the auction is Lot 16, "Untitled," by
Somnath Hore (1920-2006), an oil on canvas that measures 20 by 15
inches. A great composition with fabulous luminosity, it has a
modest estimate of $20,000 to $30,000. It sold for $36,500.

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